Abstract
The presence of petroleum resources in South-East Asia’s seabed and the increasing value attached to them may give rise to serious international conflicts in the course of the development of these resources. Such conflicts would essentially arise from disagreements over ownership rights. Questions concerning property rights over off-shore petroleum resources could spring from (1) incompatibility in perceptions of the equity of existing or proposed legal definitions of jurisdictional boundaries concerned, and (2) incompatibility of jurisdictional boundaries so delineated with geological and environmental phenomena. Disputes may also arise from conflicting historical ownership claims. As stated in the introductory chapter, this study will attempt to identify such conflict situations only for the purpose of analysing their economic and policy implications. No attempt will be made to delve into the politics of such situations.
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References
Patrick A. Mulloy, ‘Political storm signals over the sea’, Natural History, 1973. It will be of interest to South-East Asian scholars that the involvement of Grotius in legal maritime issues arose from a Dutch-Portuguese dispute over transit rights in the Straits of Malacca, also an issue in the Third Law of the Sea Conference. Grotius advocated freedom of the seas on behalf of the Dutch East India Company’s interests, while Seiden defended the right of dominion by Britain over foreign incursions for security and economic reasons.
See Seyom Brown and Larry L. Fabian, ‘Diplomats at Sea’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 52, No. 2 (January 1974), pp. 302–3.
Cited in John Temple Swing, ‘Who will own the oceans?’, Foreign Affairs, April 1976, p. 528.
Some Scandinavian countries claimed 4 miles, a few Mediterranean countries claimed 6 miles, and Russia in Czarist days claimed 12 miles. See Luard, op. cit., p. 30.
U.S.A., Presidential Proclamation No. 2667 on the ‘Policy of the United States with respect to the natural resources of the subsoil and seabed of the continental shelf’ (The Truman Proclamation), 28 September 1945. See S.H. Lay et al. (compilers), New Directions in the Law of the Sea (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1973), Vol. I, pp. 103–6.
See ‘Agreements between Chile, Ecuador and Peru’, signed at the First Conference on the Exploitation and Conservation of the Maritime Resources of the South Pacific, Santiago (Chile), 18 August 1952, reproduced in Lay et al., Vol. I, pp. 231–4.
See Luard, op. cit., pp. 30–42. See also Swing, op. cit.
‘Brunei: Southeast Asia’s pocket size producer’, Petroleum News S.E.A., July 1973, pp. 38–42. See Proclamation dated 30 June 1954.
Position paper circulated by Philippine delegation among various states and the United Nations in 1955. See Arturo M. Tolentino, ‘The waters around us: why the archipelagic doctrine is vital to the Philippines’, BNFI Papers No. 5 (Manila, Philippines: Bureau of National and Foreign Information, undated), p. 12.
Luard, op. cit., p. 30.
See R.C. Amacher and R.J. Sweeney, eds., The Law of the Sea: U.S. Interests and Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Inc., 1976), p. 62.
Luard, op. cit., p. 197.
Seyom and Brown, op. cit., p. 311.
Quoted in Amacher and Sweeney, op. cit., p. 92.
Petroleum Economist, June 1976, p. 235.
United Nations, Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, ‘Revised single negotiating text’, Part IV, Document A/CONF.62/WP.9/Rev. 2, 23 November 1976, reproduced in Official Records, Vol. VI, pp. 144–55.
See Article 24, ‘Convention on the territorial sea and the contiguous zone’, Geneva, 1958, reproduced in U.S. Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Legislation on Foreign Relations, Joint Committee Print (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), pp. 1239–46.
United Nations, Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, Official Records (New York, Caracas, and Geneva sessions), Vols. I, II, and III (New York, 1975). All subsequent references to this will be ‘Official Records’.
Petroleum News S.E. A., 31 May 1974, p. 5.
Sunday Nation (Singapore), 22 May 1977, p. 4, ‘Viets make claim on off-shore zones’, and U.S. State Department Communication, Singapore, 6 July 1977.
Proclamation, 1 September 1964, cited in U.S. State Department, Geographer, Limits in the Seas Series, No. 36. National Claims to Maritime furisdiction, third revision (Washington, D.C.: December 1975), hereinafter referred to as ‘Limits in the Seas’.
‘Declaration of 15 November 1968 by the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma on the Territorial Sea of the Union of Burma’, in United Nations, Legislative Series, National Legislation and Treaties Relating to the Territorial Sea, The Contiguous Zone, the Continental Shelf, the High Seas, and to Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the Sea (New York, 1970), p. 49.
Asian Wall Street fournal (Hong Kong), 12 April 1977, p. 6, ‘Territorial waters of Burma extended’ and ‘Territorial sea and maritime zones law (Pyithu Hluttaw Law No. 3 of 1977)’, promulgated on 9 April 1977, and reproduced in The Working People’s Daily (Rangoon), 10 April 1977, pp. 1, 4.
‘Declaration du Gouvernement Royal en date du 27 Septembre 1969 relative a la mer territoriale et au plateau continental du Cambodge’, in U.N. Legislative Series, op. cit., p. 51.
Document A/Conf. 62/C.2/L.33, Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 212–13.
The term ‘archipelago’ is defined in the Composite Text as a ‘group of islands, including parts of islands, interconnecting waters and other natural features which are so closely interrelated that such islands, waters and other natural features form an intrinsic geographical, economic and political entity, or which historically have been regarded as such’. An archipelagic state would draw straight baselines joining the outermost points of the outermost islands and drying reefs, from which its territorial waters, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone, and continental, shelf would be measured. These baselines may not exceed certain limits, and waters within these baselines would be considered internal waters. See the Composite Text, Articles 46 to 54. See also Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 114, 226.
Cited in Peter Polomka, ASEAN and the Law of the Sea (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1975), p. 6. See also Limits in the Seas, p. 95.
See K. Romimohtarto et al., op. cit.ASEAN and the Law of the Sea (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1975), , p. 76.
Idem.
Petroleum News S.E.A. (February 1977), p. 7.
See Official Records, Vol. II, pp. 23, 264–5; Vol. III, pp. 190, 202. See also Republic Act 3046 of 1961.
Tolentino, ‘The waters around us’, p. 3.
Arturo Tolentino, ‘Archipelagic theory and the law of the sea’, The Philippine Geographical Journal, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (Oct. —Nov. —Dec, 1975), p. 160.
Ibid., pp. 165–8. Also Official Records as cited.
See Document A/Conf. 62/C.2/L.49, Official Records, Vol. III, pp. 226–7.
See Revised Text, Part II, Article 14. See Article 46 in the Composite Text.
Tolentino, ‘The waters around us’, p. 4.
Official Records, Vol. II, p. 272.
For example, there is concern over Singapore’s right to fish in what is at present considered ‘high seas’ but which would become Indonesian waters under the archipelagic principle. See Official Records, Vol. II, pp. 211, 268, and Doc. A/Conf. 62/C.2/L.33, Official Records, Vol. III, p. 212.
See Document A/Conf. 62/C.2/L.63, 15 August Ì974, in Official Records, Vol. III, p. 233.
Emergency (Essential Powers) Ordinance No. 7, 2 August 1969, cited in Limits in the Seas, p. 122.
Official Records, Vol. II, p. 198.
See Official Records, Vol. II, pp. 198, 292–3.
See Revised Text, Part II, Article 119(7). Indonesia and Malaysia were reportedly not completely satisfied with the wording of Article 119(7) and jointly submitted a revised provision that would preserve rights traditionally exercised or existing under agreements covering archipelagic waters of a state, where these waters lie between parts of an immediately adjacent neighbouring state. (Private communication. Official documentation is not available at the time this is written.) See Article 47 (7) in the Composite Text.
‘Convention on the continental shelf, United Nations Document A/Conf. 13/L.55, reproduced in U.S. Congress, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Legislation on Foreign Relations (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1974), pp. 1263–6. See Article 2.4.
Ibid., Article 1; italics added.
Composite Text, Article 76; italics added.
Ibid., Articles 77 and 81.
Ibid., Article 82.
Ibid., Articles 55 and 57.
Ibid., Articles 62 to 71.
Ibid., Article 121.
Petroleum News S.E.A., April 1976, p. 21; J.D. Simmons, ‘Developments in deep water drilling from floaters’, paper presented at Offshore Southeast Asia Conference, SEAPEX, session, 18 February 1976; and Asian Wall Street Journal, 28 January 1977, p. 3, ‘Exxon unit reports drilling at record depths off Thailand’.
Part of the boundary of the continental shelf area up to the 54th parallel was delimited by an agreement between the Netherlands and the Federal Republic of Germany on 1 December 1964. A similar agreement was signed between Denmark and the Federal Republic of Germany on 9 June 1965. See United Nations, Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium on the Development of Petroleum Resources of Asia and the Far East (New York, 1972), Vol. 1, p. 25.
Ibid.
The Court opined that the ‘submarine areas concerned may be deemed to be actually part of the country over which the coastal state already has dominion—in the sense that, although covered with water, they are a prolongation or continuation of that territory, an extension of it under the sea’. (International Court of Justice, North Sea Continental Shelf Cases, Judgement of 20 February 1969, paragraph 46.) See Lay et al., op. cit., Vol. I, p. 193.
U.S. Department of State, Geographer, Limits in the Seas, No. 46, Theoretical Area Allocation of Seabed to Coastal States, International Boundary Study, Series A, 12 August 1972. Cited in Amacher and Sweeney, op. cit., p. 30.
United Nations, General Assembly, Report of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor Beyond the Limits of National Jurisdiction, Official Record, 27th Session, Supplement No. 21 (New York, 1972), p. 45.
Luard, op. cit., p. 257.
Proclamation concerning the Indonesian Shelf, 1 February 1969, submitted as Document CCOP (VI)/4, and published in ECAFE, CCOP, Report of the Sixth Session, 1969, p. 136.
Conversation between the author and an Indonesian Delegate to the Law of the Sea Conference, Dr. Hasyim Djalal, 3 June 1976. See also New Directions in the Law of the Sea, Vol. IV, pp. 91–104, for the Australia-Indonesia agreements, and Limits in the Seas, p. 95, for the agreement with India.
Official Records, Vol. II, p. 169.
Ibid., pp. 198, 278.
Published in United Nations, Legislative Series, op. cit., pp. 375–9.
Malaysia has ratified a tripartite agreement with Indonesia and Thailand on the Straits of Malacca shelf (see above). It has discussed shelf boundaries on the Gulf with Thailand but by late 1976 no agreement had been ratified. See Petroleum News S.E.A., August 1976.
Official Records, Vol. II, pp. 155, 224.
New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur), 12 March 1975.
Straits Times (Singapore), 11 October 1976, p. 3.
Asian Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong), 12 April 1977, p. 6, and ‘Territorial sea and maritime zones law’ in The Working People’s Daily (Rangoon), 10 April 1977, pp. 1,4.
See Chapter 4 of Law No. 3 of 1977.
‘Declaration du Gouvernement Royal en date du 27 Septembre 1969 relative a la mer territoriale et au plateau continental du Cambodge’, reproduced in United Nations, Legislative Series, op. cit., p. 51.
Official Records, Vol. II, pp. 22, 192–3, 225.
Ibid., Vol. II, p. 159.
Proclamation from the President dated 7 September 1967 about the policy of the Republic of Viet-Nam concerning the sub-soil, seabed and resources of the Continental Shelf, submitted as Document I & N R/R.98 and published in ECAFE, CCOP, Report of the Fifth Session, 1968, p. 151.
Official Records, Vol. II, p. 162.
Sunday Nation (Singapore), 22 May 1977, op. cit.
U.S. State Department communication, Singapore, 6 July 1977.
Sunday Nation, 22 May 1977, op. cit.
Ibid. Italics added.
Proclamation No. 370 of 20 March 1968 by the President of the Philippines.
See Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 May 1976, p. 115; Straits Times (Singapore), 18 June 1976, p. 2, Straits Times (Singapore), 21 June 1976, p. 4; Philippine Daily Express (Manila), 31 July 1976, p. 18; and Straits Times (Singapore), 6 July 1976, p. 8. The Philippines has also used the res nullius and national security arguments.
See Straits Times, 15 March 1976.
Official Records, Vol. I, pp. 134, 135 and Vol. II, pp. 151, 211, 285.
Asian Wall Street Journal (Hong Kong), ‘Sea law ends as members divide on progress’, 20 September 1976, pp. 1, 7. See also Official Records, Vol. VI, pp. 133–5.
Sunday Times (Singapore), ‘Sea law talks end without pact’, 17 July 1977, p. 2.
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Siddayao, C.M. (1980). Potential Sources of Conflict and Law of the Sea Issues. In: The Off-Shore Petroleum Resources of South-East Asia. Natural Resources of South-East-Asia. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-6855-7_3
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